The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov

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“This film chills you to the bone” — Variety

A documentary about Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, arrested by the Russian FSB in Crimea and sentenced to 20 years in prison on contrived charges.

Rostov-on-Don courthouse, August 2015. A man stares through the bars of his cell, his nerves frayed. Today he will hear his sentence: 20 years in a Siberian prison for terrorism.

This is Oleg Sentsov, the Ukrainian filmmaker and Euromaidan activist, born in Simferopol, Ukraine. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea, he actively opposed the occupation. In May 2014, he was arrested by Russian security services, accused of plotting terrorist attacks, and secretly transferred to Moscow. After more than a year in detention, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison based on the testimony of two witnesses—despite the fact that their statements were coerced, later retracted in court, and no other evidence existed. Sentsov never admitted guilt.

Director Askold Kurov follows the trial and the desperate efforts of Sentsov’s family, friends, and lawyers to save him from imprisonment. The high-profile case sparked protests worldwide: Poland and the European Film Academy, along with renowned filmmakers such as Pedro Almodóvar, Wim Wenders, Agnieszka Holland, Ken Loach, Krzysztof Zanussi, Johnny Depp, and many others demanded Sentsov’s release.

Kurov’s cinematic investigation gradually exposes the absurdity and terrifyingly Kafkaesque nature of a story in which anyone can fall victim to an unrelenting state machine.